Air Force: F-35 Buys Will Continue Regardless of Interest in F-15X

An F-35A Lightning II from the 388th Fighter Wing flies over the Warriors Over the Wasatch Air and Space Show June 24, 2018, at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The F-35 was part of a four-ship participating in an attack demonstration. (U.S. Air Force photo/Todd Cromar)
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The U.S. Air Force is not backing away from future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter orders in favor of the potential F-15X program, the service's top acquisition official said Friday.

"We're not backing away from the F-35 in any way, shape or form," said Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the service's military deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition at the Pentagon. "We are invested in the program."

"When our budget hits, you will see all of that," Bunch told an audience at an Air Force Association breakfast in Washington, D.C., adding that the Boeing-designed F-15X is still a predecisional concept. "The F-35 is critical for what we've got to do in order to execute the missions of the National Defense Strategy … and operate in … a future threat environment."

Bloomberg Government reported in December that top leadership will ask for more than $1 billion to buy roughly a dozen aircraft. The request would mark first addition of a new F-15 model to the Air Force inventory in nearly 20 years.

Before he became acting defense secretary, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and other top leaders floated the F-15X proposal, which would produce a fighter equipped with better avionics and radar and capable of carrying more than two dozen air-to-air missiles.

At Lockheed, which builds the F-35, officials don't seem worried about the potential competition.

"If they chose to have an order on F-15, it won't be at the expense of F-35 quantities," Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson said Tuesday during the company's quarterly earnings call.

"I'm hearing that directly from leadership in the Pentagon, and I think that's an important point to make, not just our suspicion, but I've been told that directly. So I'm not concerned about that," she said, as reported by DefenseOne.